Abar Jodi Iccha Karo (If You Dare Desire)

About the film

In a small village of West Bengal, India, Swapna and Sucheta—two young women in love with each other—took their own lives. No one from their families came to claim their dead bodies. They remain unclaimed. What if they were alive today? What if they had decided otherwise? What if Swapna and Sucheta ran away and survived? How would their life be, how would their desires take shape? ‘If You Dare Desire…’ is a film of possibilities—within this hetero-patriarchal world—where women resist with their bodies, with their hearts, their love and desires. They live many lives. They die many deaths. Through this living and dying, they love. They resist and they dream and they create new families, new claimants, and new spaces of living, loving. In the daily struggles in a far-away village. In the dark glitter of a big city. And in the spaces in between. ‘If You Dare Desire….’, is a wish-fulfilling film. A hyper-reality of desire. A politics of hope, resistance through desire, through daily living. Welcome to the many worlds of Swapna-Sucheta. Dare to dream, and desire!

Director Biography

Debalina is an independent filmmaker and cameraperson. She studied comparative literature and worked in television before becoming a freelancer. She started her career as a still photographer. She has worked on feature length documentary films, short films, travelogues, music videos, telefilms and mixed genre. She is passionate about issues on gender and sexuality, environment and occasionally writes for newspapers and magazines. Her films have been selected in the Berlinale Talent Campus, Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF), British Film Institute (BFI), International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala etc.